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HRC Arkansas Hosts Transgender Advocate Miss Major

Recently, HRC Arkansas hosted a panel at the Kaleidoscope Film Festival to discuss the documentary film “Major!” directed by Annalise Ophelian. The film focuses on the incredible life and legacy of longtime leader and trans elder, Miss Major Griffin-Gracy, one of the most important living LGBTQ activists in our history.

Miss Major, as she is affectionately known, participated in the Stonewall Riots that launched the modern LGBTQ equality movement, learned the importance of prison reform from the leaders of the Attica prison riots, worked to combat the AIDS crisis of the 80s and 90s and led the Transgender, Gender Variant, Intersex Justice Project. In doing so, she has effectively played a key role in several of the most pressing issues facing the LGBTQ community.

During the panel, which HRC Foundation hosted, Miss Major had an intimate chat with longtime friend and activist Suzanne Pharr, Black Lives Matter Little Rock Organizer Rae Nelson, Ophelian and the film’s assistant director Stormmiguel Florez. The conversation focused on the parallels of LGBTQ history then and now, the stark realities for people who are transgender or gender non-conforming and the importance of telling our own stories in our own words.